A Garden In Pots

A Tribute To The Dutch Dresses Up A Parking Lot

In the historic Spanish mission town of San Juan Capistrano 60 miles south of Los Angeles, a 17th Century Dutch garden has been re-created in a parking lot.

The 30-foot-square garden at the Center for the Study of Decorative Arts was created as part of the center`s celebration of the 300th anniversary of the accession to the British throne of Mary II, the daughter of James II, and her husband, William III, the stadholder of the Netherlands.

``The Dutch gardens allow a kind of private expression of fantasy and opulence,`` said its designer, James J. Yoch Jr., a landscape historian who teaches English at the University of Oklahoma. ``The simplicity of the square, which is really quite pure, allows you a degree of whimsy.``

``The Dutch would enter the garden as a place to meditate,`` said Jeffrey DuCharme, who supervised the installation. ``The only thing that would interfere would be a bird chirping.``

Wooden trellises surrounded by potted orange and ficus trees enclose the square, which has been covered with decomposed granite. A series of curving wooden flower boxes surround a circular box in the center.

In the tradition of Dutch gardens of 300 years ago, the sort created by upper-class urbanhouseholders, Yoch painted a canal scene that hangs in an arched alcove.

It is intended to give the impression that a waterway flows close by, and in fact, visitors can hear the tinkle of the fountain in the center`s courtyard, which makes this image even more believable. The inclusion of a windmill in the scene adds to the Dutch flavor.

But it is the simple curving design of the flower boxes and their varied contents that are most clearly Dutch. ``The Italians were usually working with more rectangular figures, and the French were working at this time with much more elaborate parterres,`` Yoch said.

With a green base of small boxwoods and palmlike cycads, topiaries rise from the boxes, accented by the bright colors of the flowers.

Most vibrant are the lilies, hibiscuses and yellow and pink cannas. Bright purple passionflowers climb one side of a trellis wall, with pots of climbing bignonias on the other side.

In the months to follow, the center hopes to replace some of the plants with tulips, tuberoses and anemones.

All of the plants in the garden are potted, as they typically would have been in a Dutch garden so they could be brought inside easily in cold weather.

Many of the garden`s flowers are not native to the Netherlands, but this also is typical of the era. As a result of overseas exploration, new varieties were brought back to Europe, mostly in the form of seeds and bulbs, which were better able to survive long ocean voyages.

Topiaries, seen here in the form of wreaths, animals and three-tiered cones, added variety to the otherwise flat Dutch landscape, and the garden`s ficus and orange trees are meant to convey the feeling of being within a forest.

They help create a sense of spaciousness so the garden seems larger than 900 square feet.

The Center for the Study of Decorative Arts, a nonprofit group incorporated in 1982, is dedicated to the study of the historical relationship between architecture, furnishings and garden design.